Cardiologists at Guy’s hospital win award

Today members of a cardiovascular team from Guys and ST. Thomas hospital won an award for producing a series of short films about patients who have a slow heart rate. The title of their award is: Best resource sharing information about about anti coagulation therapy for patient and carers.

One of the awarded cardiologists, Ronak Rajani, Tweeted “It takes just the vision and an idea from a few, with the right motivation and perseverance to make a difference to patient care”.

There are relatively high rates of undiagnosed cases of atrial fibrillation (AF) and treatment varies across the country. Around 600,000 patients have AF in England but the rate of undiagnosed cases is 18 percent1 People with AF have a 5-6 fold increased risk of stroke and AF is estimated to be directly responsible for 12,500 strokes pa2 .

Anticoagulants are medicines that help prevent blood clots. They’re given to people at a high risk of getting clots, to reduce their chances of developing serious conditions such as strokes and heart attacks.

The medicine’s bloody side effects suggest why the video series was so successful.

The main side effect is that you can bleed too easily, such symptoms being: